Applied Urban Design combines 'why' we design and 'who' we design for, with 'how' we design, by providing the reader with a comprehensive and accessible bespoke framework for both understanding and practicing urban design in a contextually responsive manner from appraisal to design delivery. The framework is presented across four distinct steps, covering analysis at strategic and local scales; the urban design program; design development; and technical design. The authors unpack the functional blueprints, liveable qualities, contextual dynamics, and technical components of quality urban design, identifying the role of urban designers in shaping spaces and places across differing local contexts through a responsive and multiscalar approach. International best practice examples and two original ‘live’ case studies in Aalborg, Denmark and Manchester, UK demonstrate the application of the framework across differing scales and contexts – each supported by authors own images and graphics that illustrate the broad range of urban design visualisation techniques and methods.
Visually compelling and insightful, Applied Urban Design is for all who seek to understand, demand, and create people-centred, high-quality, contextually responsive places and spaces.
Table of Contents:
Part A - Urban Design: An Emerging Discipline 1. Urban Design? The Disquisition 2. Towards Contextually Responsive Urban Design 3. The Applied Urban Design Framework 4. Making Sense of Design Part B - Applied Urban Design Framework 5. Strategic Analysis 6. Local Analysis 7. Urban Design Program 8. Design Development 9. Technical Design 10.Design Delivery Part C - Urban Design Futures 11. Reflections on the Applied Urban Design Framework 12. Re-Framing Urban Design
About the Author :
Dr Philip Black is Director of the Manchester Urban Design LAB (MUD-Lab) and Senior Lecturer in Urban Design and Head of Urban Design Programmes at the University of Manchester, UK. He is co-author of The Urban Design Process with Dr Taki Sonbli. Philip has an extensive track record of research and publications on applied urban design with a particular focus on design quality, design control/governance, and urban design process and professional practice.
Dr Michael Martin is a Lecturer in Urban Design and Planning and Director of the MA Urban Design and Planning at the University of Sheffield. Previously he was an Assistant Professor in Urban Design at Aalborg University, Denmark. Michael’s research and publications in urban design cover a range of themes specialising in child-friendly cities, sustainable mobility, urban regeneration, temporary urbanism, and placemaking processes.
Mr Robert Phillips is a Director at Urban Imprint Ltd., a planning and design consultancy in Macclesfield, UK, and an Honorary Lecturer in Urban Design at University of Manchester. Bob is a chartered town planner and urban designer who has been involved in delivering planning and design projects for a broad range of clients and companies.
Dr Taki Sonbli is Manager of the Manchester Urban Design LAB, and the Technical Lead Specialist for all urban design programmes at University of Manchester. Taki is co-author of The Urban Design Process with Dr Philip Black and has also published in the areas of culturally sensitive urban design, and the graphical language of urban space.
Review :
“This wonderfully illustrated book holds many lessons for urban designers….Applied Urban Design is an answer to the cri de coeur for a flexible, contextually responsive people-centred design approach that helps to create the quality of life we might want. It could take on the mantle of the Urban Design Compendium, that some 25 years ago set out how urban designers could demonstrate positive thinking. In this time of change, it is sorely needed. It should be sent to every council in the country to read, learn and inwardly digest - and to the Government as it struggles to deal with housing.”
Jon Rowland, architect and urban designer, review for Urban Design
"Applied Urban Design: A Contextually Responsive Approach presents a carefully structured and clearly written contribution to contemporary urban design scholarship. Building on previous academic discourse and professional practice experience by the authors, this exemplary new book positions itself as both a pedagogical and professional resource, offering a cohesive framework for understanding how context—spatial, cultural, historical, and environmental—can shape the design and delivery of urban form....In contrast to approaches that more overtly frame design and research as interconnected, this book’s explicit intention to define the vocational identity of the field makes it a strong contemporary resource for educators and students focusing on the specifics of practical design skills and complex iterative interconnected processes....[This book] stands as both an unequivocally strong design guidebook and a thoughtful provocation on how the question of a global, pluriversal urban design professional might offer a different, and wider, perspective on contemporary practice."
Richard Bower, Lecturer in Design and Philosophy, Cardiff University, review for Urban Design International.
